A study on dificulties and solutions in self studying english skills ò junior english majored students at hong duc university

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my sincere thanks to many people who assisted me in my research work First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Ms Hoang Thu Ha, the English teacher of Faculty of Foreign Language, who has always been willing to give me valuable advices and suggestions in order that I can complete successfully this study Secondly, I am so thankful to students of K20A of Foreign Language Department, who encouraged and helped me a lot with my work My sincere thanks to all the lectures in Foreign Language Department for their valuable support and contributive remarks that encouraged and enabled me to fulfill this study Last but not least, my particular thanks are given to my parents for their encouragement and support which played an important role in my graduation paper Many thanks also go to all of you, to anyone I have forgotten to mention here Thank you very much! i ABSTRACT Listening skill is one of the most necessary skills to communicate in the real life Everybody knows that in order to listen to a message is not as simple as hearing it, so the listener has to understand the message and respond in the right manner The thesis will study the subjective and objective difficulties of the students in learning the listening skill Then, it would like to find out the reasons for those problems and the solutions for both teachers and students in teaching and learning the listening skill Therefore, I applied the qualitative and quantitative methods to the research So the collecting data instruments like questionnaires, interviews were used to the study The results of the research will point out the difficulties that students meet when they learn the listening skill More importantly, the study helps me find out the causes of those difficulties so that I can work out the right solutions to the problems With the hope of improving students' listening competence, I have tried my best to this thesis by my own experiences and knowledge in English teaching methodology ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i ABSTRACT ii List of tables vi PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.Rationale 2.Objectives of the study The scope of the study The methods of the study Research questions Design of the study PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW Overview of listening 1.1 Definition of listening 1.2 The importance of English listening skill 1.3 Types of listening Difficulties in learning English listening skill 2.1 What problems students have with English listening? 2.2 What makes listening so difficult? Factors affecting English listening 10 3.1 Quality of Recorded Materials 11 3.2 Cultural Differences 11 3.3 Accent 11 3.4 Unfamiliar Vocabulary 11 3.5 Length and Speed of Listening 12 Summary 13 Chapter 2: DEVELOPMENT OF THE STUDY 14 Data collection instruments 14 1.1 The survey questionnaire 14 iii 1.2 Data collection procedures 14 Data analysis and discussion 15 2.1 Student's real situations of learning English listening skill 15 2.1.1.The difficulties 15 2.1.2 The important of English listening skill 17 2.1.3 The problem in English listening skill 17 2.1.4.The kinds of listening text which students practice more 18 2.2 Cause affecting English listening skill 20 2.2.1.The difficulties that students often have when learning English listening skill 20 2.2.2.The factors have influence on the interested in English listening skill 20 2.3.Activities for improving English listening skill 22 2.3.1 The activities students like most in listening English class 22 2.3.2The activities students should before and while listening in class 23 Main findings and discussion 25 Opinions of students about English listening skill 25 3.2 Current situation in teaching and learning English listening skill 25 Chapter 3: SOLUTIONS………………………………………………………26 Suggestions for improving English listening skills 26 Recommendations 28 2.1 For students 28 2.2 For teachers 29 PART THREE: INCONCLUSION 30 Summary of the study 30 Limitation of the study 30 Suggestions for the further study 31 REFERENCES 32 APPENDIX 35 iv List of charts Chart 1: The students’ assessment of learning the listening skill 15 Chart 2: The students’ interest in learning listening skill 16 Chart 3: Student’s attitudes toward the importance of English listening skill 17 Chart 4: The frequency of student having problems in learning English listening skill 18 Chart 5: Students’ interest in extra listening activities 19 Chart 6: Difficulties in students’ listening 20 Chart 7: Factor motivating students’ learning the listening skill 21 Chart 8: The subject factor affecting the students’ learning listening skill 22 Chart 9: What students should before listening 24 Chart 10: What students should while listening 27 List of tables Table 1: Students’opinion about the activities that they like most in listening English 23 Table 2:solutions to difficuties when learning listening skills 30 vi PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.Rationale In the process of learning English, learners always encounter difficulties related to the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing Of the four skills, many learners often have difficulty with listening As a researcher, I would like to present the thesis title " A study on Difficulties and solutions in self-studying English listening skills of Junior English – majored students at Hong Duc University” for several reasons First of all, listening is the most important skill in communication in the real life Listening and speaking are two major parts of communication They are closely interdependent We are able to talk sensibly when we understand what is said to us If we fail to understand spoken language, we may miss important information and respond in a funny way Moreover, in learning a language, listening is a useful means of providing students with comprehensible input, which is an essential component of the whole language learning process And teaching listening skill in classroom helps students make transition from classroom English to real-life English more easily and effectively Last but not least reason is that listening skills are often not focused in the process of learning English in junior high school or high school Second-year students majoring in pedagogical English at Hong Duc University also have many difficulties in learning to listen Through the survey as well as through the statistic of the semester summary, the midterm and final English listening skills tests are often lower than the scores of speaking, reading and writing skills From the above mentioned reasons, this study is done with the aim of finding out the difficulties in learning to listen at home of second-year students majoring in pedagogical English at Hong Duc University and the solutions they have used to improve listening skills 2.Objectives of the study This study sets the objectives as follows: The study is carried out in order to survey the real state of teaching and learning English listening skill in HDU so that I could work out the reasons for those difficulties Most students find it difficult to learn listening skill so I would like to find the common difficulties that the students face when they learn English listening skill at HDU Because of the difficulties, many students are not interested in learning and practicing this skill at the class, therefore the study would like to suggest some possible solutions to those difficulties The scope of the study The study is about learning listening skill for second-year students in English faculty at HDU Because of the limitations of time and knowledge, the shortage of reference materials, this study can not cover the whole issue of listening skill It only focus on exploring common difficulties students get in listening skill The methods of the study The study will be conducted using quantitative, qualitative methods The study includes survey questionnaires and interview questions for students only of K22 at the FFL After getting the results, the researcher will use the tables and charts for presenting the collect data Research questions This study is carried out with the purpose of finding out the answers to the following research questions: What are the difficulties in the second-year students Faculty of English at HDU? 2 What are some solutions to improve their English listening skill? Design of the study The study is organized into three parts: Part one is the introduction It includes the rationale of choosing the topic, the objectives of the study, the scope of the study, the research questions as well as the methods to be applied Part two is the development This part consists of two chapters as follows: + Chapter one discusses the literature review In this chapter, the author of this study presents the theories difficulties to be resolved in study Theoretical background related to English listening skill, difficulties in English listening skill, strategies of English listening skill + Chapter two deals with the development of the study This chapter summarizes the research questions and gives the discussion of the study Finally, the study closes with part three, the conclusion, which gives a summary of the whole study, carries out the limitation of it and provides suggestions for further study PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW Overview of listening 1.1 Definition of listening Listening is considered one of the most important parts of the oral communication The term is used in order to make oral communication effective Obviously, it is believed that listening is a significant and essential area of development in a native language and in a second language; therefore, there have been numerous definitions of listening and listening skill According to Howatt and Dakin (1974), listening is “the ability to perceive and understand what is being said This process includes speech perception, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and transmitted content.” In addition ,Wolvin and Coakley (1982) regarded listening as "the process of receiving, attending to and assigning meaning to aural stimuli" Pearson (1983) stated that "Listening involves the simultaneous organization and combination of skills in Phonology, Syntax, Semantics, and knowledge of the text structure, all of which seem to be controlled by the cognitive process Thus it can be said that though not fully realized, the listening skill is essential in acquiring language proficiency" Hirsch (1986) gave another definition: "Listening as an aspect of skills: involves neurological response and interpretations of sounds to understand and to give meaning by reacting, selecting meaning, remembering, attending, analyzing and including previous experience" Bentey and Bacon (1996) stated that listening, an important part of the second language learning process has also been defined as an active process during which the ate W listener constructs meaning from oral input In Helgesen (2003), listening is “an active and purposeful skill; when listening, people not only grasp what they are hearing, but also connect them with information they already know.” Furthermore, this author also points out that when we listen, we not simply hear words, we need to hear the implications behind those words Recently, Lindsay and Knight (2006) argue that listening is a skill of acquiring language rather than creating language However, listening is not entirely a passive skill Whether listening carefully is active or passive depends on the listener The above two authors also give examples to illustrate their definitions When a listener participates in a conversation, the listening skill is said to be active because then the listener has the right to pause that conversation to ask questions for the speaker, but when listening to a message on the radio or local area By means of mass media, listening becomes more passive Thus, we can see that Listening comprehension is a complex problemsolving skill So listening comprehension is an active skill with the purpose of identifying the messages of words as well as linguistic elements around words including vocabulary, grammar and phonetics 1.2 The importance of listening skill Listening is one of the necessary life skills which are defined as "skills which can provide you with a better perspective on life, skills which can allow you to maintain a higher awareness of both yourself and the world around you" It is one of the most vital ways that human beings feel the life and live Everyone, in the real life, often listens more than speaks, reads or writes We listen everywhere and every time We listen to everything and everybody For instance, at home, we listen to the news, watch films or talk with others At school, students listen to the lecturers teaching At a meeting, the staff listens to the new plan from the director, etc Without listening, the man becomes backward in each minute of their lives It is obvious that listening is really important in the real life As it is mentioned in the differences between hearing and listening, hearing is a part of five senses (hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and looking) but listening is choice to hear and understand i As an integrative skill, listening Ticking off Complete Choose the Answer the (phrases, the missing correct comprehension pictures) words answer questions Most favorite 33% 21% 27% 15% Favorite 30% 35% 23% 11% Normal 21% 38% 28% 22% Uninterested 16% 6% 12% 52% Assessment Table 1: Students’opinion about the activities that they like most in listening English From the table, it can be seen that the most favorite listening activities were ticking off the items they hear (33%) and choosing the correct answers (27%) Most students (52%) feel uninterested in answering the comprehension questions Besides, only 15% of the earners confine comprehension questions are the most favorite activity And only 11% of them like answering the comprehension questions Meanwhile, completing the missing words or information is supposed a normal activity 38% of the learners think it normal and 35% of them liked it Then, listening activities affect the students' interest in learning this skill a lot In conclusion, the activities in listening English class play an important in learning and teaching English It will bring students and teachers much interest 2.3.2.The activities students should before and while listening in class In the listening class, how they learned this skill The following charts would express the ways they did it 23 % A Should pre- taught some related new words 16% 12% 68% B Should predict the content of the listening texts by the activities that the teacher gives C Both a & b D Do nothing Chart 9: What students should before listening The chart shows that most students (68%) in listening classes are taught the new words relating to the listening texts and they often predict the contents of the listening text base on the activities given by the teacher But some of them only learn the new words (16%) and the other learners (12%) guess the content before they start listening Just have 4% students not anything In conclusion, students should prepare things that relate to the text before listening So while listening, what students should do? The next chart will show this question 4% A Listen and take note 16% B Listen and answer the questions 60% Listen only 20% Other Chart 10: What students should while listening The chart shows that the majority of the learmers (60%) know to take notes while listening It is a positive activity which helps students a lot in 24 training the listening skill both in the English cass as well as other real life situations 20% of them often try to answer the questions while they are listening The other 16% of them only listen These results reflect the method of teaching and learning the listening skill In conclusion, English listening skill is a difficult subject and what students as well as teachers before and while listening is important Main findings and discussion 3.1 Opinions of students about English listening skill Generally, it is very clear from above the data analysis that students have plenty of difficulties in learning listening Most of second-year students in FFL at HDU say that English listening is difficult (69% of students) Although, English listening skill is a difficult subject, most of students (52%) still like it In class, listening to the dialogues were the most favorte activities of 66% of the students 3.2 Current situation in teaching and learning English listening skill According to the second-year students in FFL, there are some main reasons (Poor -quality CDs and CD phyers, unfamiliar content istening text, limited practice time at class) affecting students a bt while they learn English listening skill In addition, the subjective factor affecting the students learning English listening skill is that students try to listen to every words so they can not catch up the speed of the speech (40% of students say that) The most activities that students want to in class are ticking off the items they hear (33%) and choosing the correct answers (27%) Most of students also agree that there are some activities to improve English listening skill, such as: before listening, students shoukd pre-taught some related new words and predict the content of the listening texts by the activities that the teacher gives: while listening students should listen and take note 25 In conclusion, in order to get the maximum benefits of offered technique, some recommendations are proposed to the major second-year students at Facuty of Foreign Languages Chapter 3: SOLUTIONS Suggestions for improving English listening skills Difficulties Solutions The quality of the stape and the The school needs to be equipped with listening device is not good more modern equipment and focus on the management, maintenance and maintenance of equipment for teaching and learning listening on a regular basis, weekly, monthly Can’t keeo up with the speaker’s In the process of listening, students speed in the listening should not translate what they hear into Vietnamese to understand Don’t understand the content of the Before each listening activity, students listening need to think and discuss issues related to the listening topic and not force themselves to understand 100% of the information on the first listen Can’t get the sounds in English It is best for students to listen to a lot of English listening songs from native speakers with many differrent accents in many different regions from simple to complex , watch good movies in English or listen to songs in English and sing along is also an effective way to learn pronunciation 26 Table 2:Solutions to difficuties when learning listening skills "Getting the right answer is not our only goal The main goal is the listening itself" (Lafi, 2001) How much listening that leamers can understand all depends on how well- prepared teachers are and the use they can make of the listening texts? So activities are indeed crucial The writer would like to classify the syggested activities into three stages * Pre-listening activities The pre-listening stage is very important because it is the base for the listening process Pre- listening activities are the things to before the students hear the passage to help them get the most out of what they are going to hear In order to understand a piece of spoken discourse, the listener has to have not only knowledge of the language but ako some back ground knowledge of the workl Pre-listening activities make it possīble for all students to share common background knowledge before listening because it is impossible to expect al students to have the same level of knowledge about a particular workd event * While-listening activities While-listening stage is the time for students to listen to the text and understand It is not necessary for students to understand all about the listening text They not need to memorize the exact words or sentences that are said They just need to catch the major ideas There are various kinds of techniques which can be used to lead the students to focus on the general idea and the subject matter of the text they are listening to Directed listening helps the students to extract the relevant information from the spoken discourse Thus, teacher should ask more global rather than partial comprehension questions Specific questions are asked only after the students have recognized the major ideas of the listening texts Furthermore, the teacher should prepare beforehand some forms or worksheets for the learners to fill in when they listen * Post-listening activities 27 As it has been introduced in the background, in this stage, students take the information they have gained from the listening text and use it for another purpose Some following activities can be applied for this stage - Summarizing: leamers write up the information that they have in their listening They reconstruct the text in their own words using the notes or drawings as cues They can practice writing in groups, in pairs or individually - Recalling the story: it is another form of summarizing the story but in oral way Learners re-tell the story in the listening text in their own words They practice speaking in groups or in pairs - Role play: learners dramatize the listening text, taking the roles of the characters in the story they have just heard Recommendations 2.1 For students The students want to learn the listening better, they themselves ought to try their best to change their bad habits of listening and to improve their background knowledge Today there are many ways to learn English, to improve your listening skills, every day you should spend to 10 minutes or more to listen to a short English news to the survey, most students had habits of listening to every word in the recording so they soon got tired and frustrated of listening As a consequence, they answered the listening tasks mainly by guessing but not by understanding the text It is not necessary for learners to understand every word in order to understand the information they need from the recording Therefore, leamers should lead to focus on the message When listening, the learners should summarize the ideas they listen to and take notes They had better not translate the listening text into the mother tongue, but try to understand it in the target language Moreover, outside the listening class, students have to practice regularly such as listening to English songs, listening in VOA, watching foreign channes (such as: HBO, CINEMAX, you can watch the American films to improve your English listening comprehension) so as to 28 get acquainted with the native accent in normal speech In addition, they must enrich themselves with general knowledge of the English speaking countries, English language, and social and cutural knowedge 2.2 For teachers Teachers play a crucial part in improving learners' listening skill Teaching methods was the most considered factor that the learners mentioned in the survey In teaching the listening skill to the beginners, the teachers have to pay attention to the following elements Additionally, teachers should provide more interesting topics for further listening The authentic listening material is usually interesting because the listeners are exposed to the real life With the listening text in the text book, the teachers can create more exciting activities to motivate students to take part in Meanwhile, to help the learners omit their bad habits; they should be encouraging not to panic when they miss a piece of information On the other hand, teachers have responsibility for providing necessary background knowledge which relates to the listening texts for the earners before they listen In addition, teachers can warm up by exciting games which introduce more about the culture, society and countries in the world For example, pre-listening, teachers can held games to the students, such as true/false statements used for prediction: the teacher writes -10 statements on the board based on the main ideas in the listening text Only half statements are true Students work in pairs and guess these statements true The teacher does not say they are right or wrong until they listen to the text The requirement should be clear and also given before listening so that the earners can draw a clear purpose to listen is easier for them to catch the message they need In teaching, teachers should require the leamers to obey some regulations For example, let students listen in a certain number of times, then ask them to express their own ideas with evidence and let students discuss together before giving confirmation When checking their answers, teachers should not be led 29 by some strong students, but all of them must be asked and get information Because of the various differences in the leamers, teachers should upgrade the level of the listening tasks in order to encourage them PART THREE: INCONCLUSION This chapter will deal with a summary of the major findings, limitations of the study and some suggestio ns for further studies Summary of the study To reach what the author aimed at this study; the study was divided into three part with their own purpose The first part briefly covers the theories reated to the study The second part presented the overview on situation of leaming English listening skill at FFL, HDU The third part presented the research methodology and author's findings of the approach to listening at FFL through the questionnaires This chapter also helps the author find the answers for two research questions that stated in the introduction The last part is some recommendations and suggestions to improve English listening skill at HDU Limitation of the study Athough the study has certain strong points such as collection methods, survey questionnaires for students, due to limited time, lack of sources, the researcher's ability and other unexpected factors, it is obvious that the study has got a number of short-comings First of all, due to the limited of time, experience to some extent, the researcher could not conduct other methods such as cassroom observation which can make the obtained results more reliable Secondly, due to the limitation of scope of the study, the researcher only focus on the second-year students in Faculty of Foreign Language which account for a small number of students at FFL,HDU Therefore, the result of the study can't be generalized Besides, the researcher could not cover all the aspects of difficulties 30 In addition, the techniques suggested in this research are selected from different reliable but limited sources In spite of the mentioned limitations, I hope that this exploratory l contribute to the better situation of teaching and learning English listening skill at FFL, HDU 4.3 Suggestions for the further study Because of the limitation, this study could not cover all of aspects of the study Besides, the study only focuses on difficulties for only second-year students at FFL in order to help them improve their listening skill Moreover, for the further studies, to get better resuts, the researcher should invite more participants and the data collection method Together with using survey questionnaires and interviews, observation is aso necessary to get more persuasive conclusions Al in all, despite the study can avoid to the limitation, the research has been completed under the guiding of the supervisor and self-effort Any comments and criticism will be highly appreciated for better further study 31 REFERENCES Brown, H.D (2001), Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Second Edition Essex: Longman Bentley, S., & Bacon, S (1996) The all new, state-of-the-art ILA definition of listening: Now that we have it, what we with it? Listening Post, Helgesen, Marc (2003) "Listening" in Practical English Language Teaching, edited by David Nunan McGraw-Hill Lindsay, C and Knight, P (2006) Learning and Teaching English, a course for teachers, Oxford University Press.3 Gary Buck (2001), Assessing Listening Goh, (1998) How ESL Leamers with Different Listening Abilities Use Comprehension Strategies and Tactics Language Teaching Research Harman, Willis W "Rationale for good choosing." Journal of Humanistic Psychology (1981) Howatt, A and J Dakin (1974), Language laboratory materials, ed J P B Allen, S P B Allen, and S P Corder Lafi, T (2001), Teaching Listening Comprehension Regional Board of Education- Monastir, Tunisia Munro, M & Derwing, T M (1999) Foreign Accents, Comprehensibility and Intelligibility in the Speech of Language Leamers Language Leaming 10 Nation, I.S.P (1990), Language teaching techniques Victoria University of Wellington English Language Institute 11 Nord, J.R (1980), Developing listening fluency before speaking: An altermative paradigm, System 12 Nguyễn Thị Vân Lam & Ngơ Đình Phương (2006), English Telaching Methodology Vinh University 32 13.Azmi, B M., Celik, B., Yidliz, N., & Tugrul, M C (2014) Listening Comprehension Difficulties Encountered by Students in Second language Learning Class 14 Munro, M J., & Derwing, T M (1999) Foreign Accent, Comprehensibility and Intelligibility in the Speech of Second Language Learners 15.Goh, C (1999) Teaching Listening in the Language Classroom 16.Underwood, M (1989) Teaching listening 17.Graham, S (2006) Listening Comprehension: The Learners’ Perspective 18.Seferoglu, G., & Uzakgoren, S (2004) Equipping Learners with Listening Strategies in English Language Classes Hacettepe University Faculty of Educational Journal 19.Bloomfield, A et al (2010) What Makes Listening Difficult? Factors Affecting Second Language Listening 20.Andergrift, L (2007) Recent Development in Second Language Listening Comprehension Research 21.Walker, N (2014) Listening: the Most Difficult Skill to Teach 22 Buck, G (2001) Assessing Listening 33 APPENDIX Survey questionaires for students This survey questionnaire is designed for my graduation paper namely: “A study on Difficulties and solutions in self-studying English listening skills of Junior English – majored students at Hong Duc University" in completing these questions, please choose the answer by circling the letter next to your choice, ticking off the items in a checklist or expressing your idea in the blanks All your personal information as wel as your answers will be kept confident and not be used for the other purposes Thanks for your help! Personal information Your name: …………………………………………………………………… Your student code : …………………………………………………………………… Your gender: A Male B Female How old are you? ………………………………………………………………… How long have you been learning English? A About years B About years C About years D Over years I Your opinion on studying listening skill In your opinion, English listening skill is ………… .… A Not difficult B Easy C Quite difficult 34 D Difficult E Others Do you like English listening lessons at class? A I don’t like B I like C I like very much D I don’t mind What you think about the importance of English listening skill? A Not important B Important C Quite important D Very important E Others How often you have problems in your listening skill? A Rare B Always C Often D Sometimes E Others 10 What kinds of listening text you expect practice more? Kinds of listening Uninterested Normal text A Songs B Films and stories C Conversation, 35 Favorite Most favorite interviews, dialogues, etc D News or lecture II The causes affecting to listening English skill 11 Which of the following reasons make you difficult to learn listening English? A Fast speed speaking B Poor quality CDs and CD player C Limited practice time at class D Unfamiliar content listening text E Other 12 What makes you interested in learning English listening skill best ? Items Most influential Influential A Interesting topic B Exciting activities C Adequate modern equipment D Good teaching method 36 A bit Not influential influential 13 In listening classes , you often A Only listen to stressed words B Try to listen to every words so you can’t catch up the speed of the speech C Need to listen more than three times to understand D Feel tired and unconcentrated when listen more than three times E Other III Activities for improving English listening skill 14 What listening activities you like best? A Tick off (phrase/ pictures/items) B Complete the missing words C Choose the correct answer D Answers comprehension questions E Other 15 What should you before listening?(more than one choice) A Do nothing B Should pre-taught some related news words C.Should predict the content of the listening texts by the activities that the teacher gives D Both B and C E Other 16.While listening, you should: A Listen only B.Listen and take notes C Listen and answer the questions D Other Thank you very much for your cooperation! 37